He May Not Have Been Writing About Todays Republican Voter But Steinbeck Nailed It

[lame54]

Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionares.
---- John Steinbeck

[Mme. Defarge]

1. Brilliant!

[unblock]

2. I learned this when I was a kid

My father asked a 60 year old machinist in a university lab why he voted republican when he agreed that democratic policies were better for him.

He said "because some day I'm gonna be rich and when that happens, I want my taxes to be low!"

Just a few years away from retirement, in a state that had no lottery at that time (they weren't a big thing back in the '70s). Essentially zero prospects for becoming rich, yet he wanted to pay in real life for low taxes for his fantasy.

[misanthrope]

3. American culture calls that "optimism"

instead of what it really is: delusion.

[unblock]

4. It's even tactically stupid

All delusion aside, why not vote now for the policies that help you now; then, if and when you do become rich, vote then for the policies that help you then.

Even if he belived he was going to make it rich somehow, it's still stupid to vote republican before he got there.

[hedda_foil]

5. By definition,anyone who thinks like this is pretty damn stupid.

[Crash2Parties]

6. American history is skewed

From the exploitation of the original inhabitants by Christians (colonists in the East, Missionaries in the West), to the idea that our nation was born of a wish for religious freedom rather than being a Capitalist war over taxation, our working class has no idea. We were taught for generations that to be factory or canon fodder was a good thing, the very best thing. And all the while the (wealthy, white, male) Capital class just kept gathering up and hording our ability to provide for ourselves. Because, you see, that is the end goal of Capitalism.

[retread]

7. Bono on difference between Ireland and US.

"... In America, you look up at . . . the mansion on the hill and say, 'One day . . . that could be me.'
In Ireland, they look up at the mansion on the hill and go, 'One day I’m gonna get that bastard.' "

---Bono

[ananda]

8. Just for the record, this is attributed to Steinbeck.

But there is no evidence that he actually ever said it or wrote it